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Aiming to stop debate over abortion from derailing health care legislation, Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami is calling on Congress to continue the ban on federal funding for abortions.

Though proposed legislation does not mention abortion, some Republicans argue that the proposed overhaul of the healthcare system could open the door to federal funding of the procedure. Democrats counter that abortion opponents are trying to cook up controversy in an effort to topple the broader reform effort.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Tuesday, Meek joined four others Democrats in proposing a “common ground solution” that would maintain the status quo on abortion policy. Specifically, the government would continue to allow insurers to decide whether to offer abortion coverage — most do — and keep federal tax dollars out of it.

He’s a church black. I used to have a vague soft spot for him as I was watching Cspan when Rumsfeld testified before first the senate then the house. His last questioner at the end of the day was Meek… and I thought I detected racism coming ot boil in Rummy, in fact I htought it would boil over. that this young black man DARE question him.

But he is so happy lately to step right up for the pro lifers. Slap happy!

CORNYN WANTS TO PREPARE FOR THE INDIAN THREAT…. Senators have had to get pretty creative lately to defend spending more money on a fighter jet that doesn’t work and that the Pentagon doesn’t want. Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) argument, however, might be my favorite.

“[The F-22 is] important to our national security because we’re not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Cornyn says. “We’re fighting — we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of their military power; Russia; Iran, that’s threatening to build a nuclear weapon; with North Korea, shooting intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of hitting American soil.” [emphasis added]

LAS MANOS, Honduras (Reuters) – Defying U.S. criticism, ousted President Manuel Zelaya returned for a second day to Honduras’ land border to try to put pressure on the coup leaders who threw him out of the country last month.

In a move that risked alienating his most powerful ally (ally, really?!?! The only country in the world that hasn’t unequivically condemned the coup is his ALLY?!?! What a fucking worthless piece of shit the NYT is.) in his bid to return to power, Zelaya also said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not adequately informed about Honduras’ “repressive regime”.

Clinton criticized Zelaya as “reckless” when he came to this town on the Honduran border with Nicaragua on Friday and took a few steps on Honduran soil as police and soldiers with orders to arrest him stood just yards away .

He returned on Saturday and insisted he would not give up his fight to regain power, although he showed little appetite for a confrontation with security forces, saying he had held back from entering Honduras to avoid provoking a massacre.

“You know that if I get close and they want to arrest me, people will defend me and there will be a massacre,” he told reporters, sitting on the hood of a white jeep.

Seal of approval for that amazing birdface, too. Photo taken at a research center swimming pool in Logy Bay, also Newfoundland. (At some point, I just quit asking about these names.)

Can’t stand watching national politics much anymore, either, personally. It’s all so fucking predictable, on the grand scale, and meanwhile the super-close-ups seem to take all my available energy.

Grateful to you all for keeping watch. (Adds to chorus of special kudos for Marisa, and extra thanks to BHHM for reliably hilarious commentary on recent, er, sweep! On behalf of New York State, may I also thank New Jersey? ):)

“Obama” (actor with mask) will carry a whip to drive his “slaves” so that they will work on his “death plantation;” I.e., taxpayers are forced to give money to kill the innocent. The “slaves” will have chains they pull behind them…and more…

[…snip…]

“We hope this imagery will awaken some of our fellow citizens to the evil that will be brought upon us if we do not hold a ‘slave rebellion.’ We will not rest in our efforts to keep child killing out of the health care bill — and being successful in that endeavor — we will work to defeat the bill entirely.” — Randall Terry, Founder, Operation Rescue

about 8 years ago I saw some very heart breaking encounter… forget where now, some battle site from WW One… of two quite natty old dears… one German one English. Both in wheel chairs… I suppose one was Allingham perhaps… or this one. They both reached out from under their blankets, held hands and shed tears they had been forced to fight. And for what.

She started some low level pot shot taking on Ob a couple of weeks ago, rat a tat tat… and the WH is blocking her attempt to bring on Sid Blumenthal as an aide de camp at State…

he has returned fire indicating she LOST the health care debate. yeah she did, Big Time…, but sorry to say so will you bud. And I assume Bill’s sudden conversion (yeah really, I so believe it!) on gay marriage ws a salvo too. I’d love it if the two perps the Democratic party put up in ’08 fought it out, low level street battles.

So her appearance might be interesting. And she is now so doctrinaire in the foreign stuff… like listening to a soviet meeting or something. snooze as we lose and die.

and the WH is blocking her attempt to bring on Sid Blumenthal as an aide de camp at State…

I missed that news.

Yes, there’s definitely a pissing match going on with that dysfunctional menage a trois. I’m surprised Obama is allowing her so much press time since he likes to be the face of absolutely everything that goes in in his administration.

Hoagland, who I cannto stand had an interesting column, think it was a Sat (menaing this Sat) column on some aspects of it … he felt her hurry up speech (not planned for weeks as the PR said) at CFR was a response to a column of his remarking on her sidelining.

I dislike Hoagland but there were tidbits in therre.

Allocate weapons, assign seconds and let them go at it in the streets.

Cambodian baby elephant with foot prosthesis, Giraffe Manor hotel in Kenya, and the Sundarbans tiger release photo are the best!. (Yes, yes, Leo the lamb with Alice the Kitten break the cute-o-meter, for what that’s worth, too.)

I read the story about that clouded leopard cub in Bangladesh recently. They thought those leopards were extinct there since no one had seen one for years. They let the little guy go back into the wild after his photo shoot, iirc.

He was sadder than Buckley, the puppy who’d lost his ears and tail … because despite what he’s been through, Buckley looks happy now. The cub’s eyes peering through the mesh of the cage looked so forlorn. I’m glad he’s not still there.

In part because legislation under consideration already includes substantial savings in Medicare over the next decade, CBO found modest additional medium-term savings from this proposal — $2 billion over 10 years. The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. (Indeed, under the Administration’s approach, the IMAC system would not even begin to make recommendations until 2015.) Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term. In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset.

The two women on with Moyers, one said that it seems clear that Medicare will be moved to 100% privatised, with the poorest and sickest shuffled to whatever is the New [Wretched Horrible Bare Bones] Government Program.

Yes everything is going so well. Maybe the Pak of AfPak just needs a homey community vegetable garden. Then all will be “OK”.

The Taliban’s power in Pakistan continues to grow and it now has entire towns under its control. Under US pressure, the Pakistani army is fighting the Islamists — with limited success. Pakistani intelligence says the Americans are doing more harm than good. …

It has been interesting listening to KGO call ins over the past few days… with the exception of a hideous closet racist (his vote for Obama and his months of gush for Ob, covers that closet door) who thought Gates should apologise to Crowley (geesh!)… the difference between GatesGate… and the death of poor Oscar Grant shot in the back at the Fruitvale BART station early Jan 1 2009 is about from here to the moon.

Soft slobber for Gates (who of course is an issue for the Democratic party, to be blunt, and a personal issue for Obama) vs hideous racism, masses of presumption and screawming and diatribe agaisnt black callers during the Grant weeks.

I have noticed since an East Bay judge, in a hearing to be bound over for trial for Mehserle, the BART cop who shot Grant and then resigned, since the judge called what happened “murder” and utterly discounted, again from the bench, the ”story” of thinking he was using his taser AND the release in court of a new never seen video that discounted what ohter Bart cops said to support Mehserle… well KGO has shut the fuck up about the Grant killing.

Sheesh. Hillary talking about her relationship with Obama. Going on about how “the president sets the policy” and it’s her job to carry it out. So, congress has no role in foreign policy? Sounds like a monarchy to me.

President Barack Obama on Saturday continued his full-court press to pass health care reform legislation. In his weekly Internet and radio address, Obama cited a new White House study indicating that small businesses pay far more per employee for health insurance than big companies — a disparity he says is “unsustainable — it’s unacceptable.”

“And it’s going to change when I sign health insurance reform into law,” Obama said, adding that he has “a sense of urgency about moving this process forward.”

This time, the health care industry groups see a strategic opportunity. As lawmakers squabble, the groups are focused on how to come out ahead in the end game.

“We’re still optimistic that we can get health care reform accomplished,” said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the main insurance industry trade group. “There is strong support from policymakers and from across the health care sector. ”

It’s all got to do with shifts in the economy. Even before the recession hit, employer-sponsored health coverage had been steadily shrinking, and many people couldn’t afford the premiums for individual policies. Meanwhile, government programs have been expanding — and they’ve gotten increasingly friendly to private insurance companies. Insurers now play major roles as middlemen in Medicare, Medicaid and the children’s insurance program.

And if the government requires everybody to get coverage — just what the overhaul legislation calls for — it could guarantee a steady stream of customers subsidized by taxpayers not only for insurers, but for all medical providers.

What I’m concerned about is the damage that’s being done right now to the health of our families, the success of our businesses, and the long-term fiscal stability of our government,” Obama said in his address.

Obama criticized what he said were tactics by opponents to block health care overhaul “as a way to inflict political damage on my administration. I’ll leave it to them to explain that to the American people.”

“Today, after a lot of hard work in Congress, we are closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will reduce costs, expand coverage and provide more choices for our families and businesses,” Obama said.

The industry groups have invested heavily to make sure their views get taken into account. The health care sector gave $167 million in campaign contributions to congressional candidates in the 2008 election cycle, according to the watchdog group OpenSecrets.org. Health care companies poured $484 million into lobbying efforts in 2008, and are on pace to exceed that this year.

Separately, the drug companies have offered up $80 billion over 10 years to reduce prescription costs of seniors if a deal goes through, while major hospital groups agreed to a $155-billion reduction in Medicare and Medicaid payments to free up funds that would help subsidize coverage for the uninsured.

The political infighting on Capitol Hill has strengthened the hand of the health care groups, since liberals have been thwarted so far in their attempts to win speedy passage of the legislation through the House and Senate.

…health care can’t be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care.

The U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.

On a Web site listing federal business opportunities, the Army this month published a notice soliciting information from prospective contractors who would develop a security plan for 50 or more forward operating bases and smaller command outposts across Afghanistan.

Although the U.S. military has contracted out security services to protect individuals, military bases and other facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, this contract would award a commercial company unusually broad “theater-wide” authority to protect forward operating bases in a war zone.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Our Bank of Canada guy came out last week with the same declaration – that the recession is over. But the way that’s looked at by those in the world of economics compared to those of us on the ground is definitely at odds.

Frankly,
they don’t even have the econometrics to describe what is happening. No matte for “bourgeois dad” . The intentional con of preferring economic narratives and framing this collapse compels such blibber….

It is Class Warfare courtesy of the collusion between Democrats and Republicans alike. What’s astounding is this fellow (the media and the upper middle class are full of them) …they hold forth cluelessly, and as far as I can tell , actually still believe in the system.

If there isn’t a run on brokerage accounts after the Times stories on Goldman Sachs this week it will be a small miracle.

Trying to lay off my loutish ways today,
I want to add a bit to this heeya “…they don’t even have the econometrics to describe what is happening.….

What is really Concentration Theory (of Wealth in economic terms , other uses in other disciplines…)
Concentration Theory (in Econ at least) is a term out of use, muddied over on many levels for obvious political palatability… yielding to bland reporting on Income Distribution, pay gaps, savings rates etc..

Academic quants are struggling still to define factors (LOL in acceptable terms) of this dynamic (on the move) accelerating (picking up speed) reality..(our SUCK)

Abstract The generalized (also called extended) transfer principles as introduced in two earlier papers by Egghe and Rousseau are known to be stronger properties than the classical transfer principle of Dalton. Hence, functions satisfying one of these generalized principles are very good concentration measures. This paper studies the following non-trivial problem: how many different generalized transfer principles can a function satisfy? We show that a function can, at most, satisfy one generalized transfer principle. This also shows that a further generalization of transfer principles, comprising the generalized ones, is not possible. The proof of this result involves the solution of a norm problem in mathematical analysis and analytical geometry.

I’ll be glad when they describe in detail and can quantify the various sets of political actors, their corruption, rise and fall of relative strength. I mean how do you factor in Mistress Payments. Be they from Edwards or Ensign? How do you chart the cycle of wealth and political power transfer and its cummulative effect, with any accuracy or marginal utility, snerk ,of, say Orthodox Jews dealing in everything from counterfeit Gucci handbags to live vital organs?

How can they report it?
What? Kidneys are still Up!!?!! But Jews are down 20 Rabbis today in political trading???

And they dare not tell us precisely how, and frankly not so much for differentials among certain protected sets….
The D=R/R=D would become patently apparent esppecially if they took the snapshot of family wealth ex-officio.

well the victim should have done what Gates did.. even before he supposedly offered up his ID. He dialed the Chief of Police in Cambridge. No evidence he got thru… and I am sure he was shocked as hell when a stage filled iwth cops to prove the Blue Line and call out a Pretzel.

Poor sod handcuffed on the ground with a taser up his ass could not dial. Otherwise I am sure he has all the access that Gates, a dancing courtier, has.

HA! the first place I saw a phone you could walk around iwth… albeit as long as you did nto venture too far from whatever line it was keyed to… was in Texas in about ’78. OF COURSE, it was red white and blue and was called a Freedom Phone. I mean, what else?

It was useful out at the pool, especially after we discovered his step mother had gone cold turkey, cleaned out all the wet bars, but we found the pool side bar and the pool house was still fully stocked. She never figured out why two pale people who barely could manage to float moved to the pool… :roll:

Training one’s sphincter muscles to dial the thing is a bit awkward at first , not to mention VERY muffled reception but this is a burgeoning market, and otherwise, I think we’ll see this does a LOT for the Market. Back to you, Cramer.

So.

Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, hav […]

As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check's Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclu […]

The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest the organization profits from supplying aborted […]

In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from the St. Johns Bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell's plan […]

On Reality Asserts Itself, Mr. Drake, a former Senior Executive at the National Security Agency, says he was targeted by the NSA because he exposed that the agency had intel that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks and because he blew the whistle on a massive secret surveillance program aimed at Americans

James K. Gailbraith says, IMF is demanding a substantial reduction of the Greek debt to participate in any new deal and meanwhile German law makers are refusing to approve a new bail-out without the IMF

James K. Galbraith a member of the working group advising the former finance minister Varoufakis on 'Plan B' says there were great impositions imposed on the Greek government including certain procedures that removed control from the government and placed them in the hands of creditor institutions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will unveil on Monday the final version of his plan to tackle greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, kicking off what is expected to be a tumultuous legal battle against federal environmental regulators by the coal industry and its political allies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump, the man to beat in this week's first televised Republican presidential debate, said on Sunday he does not plan to attack his rivals and downplayed expectations for his performance, saying "I'm not a debater."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. backers of the Iran nuclear deal are increasingly confident of enough Democratic support to ensure it survives review by Congress, despite fierce opposition by majority Republicans and a massive lobbying drive.

(Reuters) - A Super PAC backing Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton raised $15.6 million in the first six months of the year, according to a report filed on Friday with the Federal Elections Committee.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.